Right now I've busted a board, and managed to desolder and resolder a stick but the controller doesn't turn on anymore. I'm doing this all by myself, and I think I'm following good advice (ventilation, good iron tip, using flux etc...).
But there are many variables, and a lot of experts have different opinions on stuff. Does anyone know good resources that I could use for getting good and making less mistakes ? Thanks.
A small USB-C soldering iron supported by IronOS[1], e.g. Pinecil vor TS100
A solid stand with brass wool
A KU soldering tip (looks a bit like a knife) for good heat transfer, too small tips are not good
Thin (<=0.5mm) solder wire
No clean flux (not a pen)
Isopropyl alcohol
Solder fume extractor (DIY is OK, if you're building it right) is good for your health
Solder mat (blue silicone)
Multimeter (not too cheap, around 20 bucks)
Self closing tweezers
Normal tweezers
A wirecutter (blue 5 bucks from ali express)
Manual Desoldering pump (engineer ss03 or a clone for cheaper)
Most important is cleaning (alcohol, then flux) and heat transfer (tin your tip, your pads or your wire before putting things together to ensure good heat transfer). Cleanup nicely and tin your tip after soldering to prevent corrosion.
Optional but helpful for more professional tasks:
Hot air station
Auto Desoldering pump (ZD-8965)
Adjustable power supply (fnirsi usbc, 30 bucks)
Oscilloscope (mini beginner with display Cost around 30 bucks)
Capton tape
Solid Copper wire
1: https://github.com/Ralim/IronOS
I got an SL108 I'm really happy using with my 67W Anker brick (far more convenient than the FX 951 station I had to store + set up every time). I think I could do some precision work with my SL108 but if it became regular or a new project involved it I'd get something smaller, like the TS101 or similar, I guess.
The ZD-8965 is cheaper (not as high quality but good enough and only around 100 bucks), has a separated station with a very light gun, that is pretty easy to work with and it is significantly smaller more silent than other ZD-* models. Another advantage is that the gun can be replaced for around 25 bucks, so if you ever drop it or it gets leaky, you don't have to invest another 100 bucks.
I used it for desoldering / mill maxing multiple Logitech G515 keyboards with 88 switches (264 solder joints) and I worked through a whole keyboard with one go - no cleaning, no clog, no overheat.
As someone who has only touched one once, heat guns kind of scare me mostly because the airflow is invisible. I have destroyed things with it and almost burned myself. It's hard for me to gauge if you have too much or too little heat on something. Too far away it's doing nothing and too close you're frying a piece, and there is no indication where on that range you are without some learned intuition.
It’s not a hot air soldering station.
After decades of using copper braid, I recently splurged for the 301 and wish I’d done it sooner. My teen kid could effortlessly desolder the button on his worn out gaming mouse with it after 30 seconds of training (me demoing how to use it).
You can buy the Japanese version, desolder 1 resistor, and solder in two replacements to adapt it from Japanese 100VAC to US 120VAC and save about $100, plus it will remind you how awful desoldering with braid is by comparison. It takes 30 very unhurried minutes at most to do the mod.
Maybe a bit over the top for a lot of situations. I assume folks would acquire these things over a long period of time depending on their projects or what they are repairing. I have a 2-ch function generator coming because after 20 years of bodging stuff together and fixing minor things, I am tired of using the super cheapo one I got back in the day. It takes a while to amass all that crap, but it's fun.
A couple other thoughts: used hemostats are super helpful for a lot of things. for a lot of years I avoided getting any kind of "3rd hand" because I would use combinations of hemostats.
Or jigs- I have a very old piece of wood that has hole drilled for m and f XLR and 1/4 audio connectors with notes about which pin is which. Making tools like that is quite satisfying.
I really enjoy having a stack of stainless steel condiment cups to put screw in- I stack them up during a disassembly and then unstack them as I reassemble.
Also I will say that while I thought building one of those cheap-o oscilloscope kits was a pretty fun practice and I can recommend that, I don't fine them easy enough to use for beginners... the 2-ch Rigol scope I got was not super expensive and felt like the cheapest thing I'd be recommending to folks.
Finally, I have had a lot of mixed successes with desoldering pumps. It took me a long time to figure out that I can only get desoldering braid to work if I put liquid flux on it, but that made it a lot cleaner for me than the solder suckers.
I love this! Automatically sequences the fasteners.
Another option is a piece of corrugated cardboard. Poke the screws into cardboard in the pattern they are in the device you're disassembling.
Not supported by any open third party firmware usually, but that's fine with me.
One thing to watch out for is tip grounding, some cheap irons leak a few volts at micro to milliamp level power, relative to ground, which could matter if you solder very sensitive things that are grounded, which you probably don't.
DIY fume extractors are hard to do, you need powerful fans unless you have an arm to put the extractor right above the iron. Also remember that when it's just sitting in the stand, it will still smoke for a few seconds, so the extractor must cover that too.
Those thin wispy activated carbon pads probably aren't doing much, you need actual particulate filtering like a HEPA or similar, but almost anything is better than having the smoke directly in your face with no fans.
Disclosure: Old person. ;-)
Any recommendations for this?
Also, 63/37 tin/lead "eutectic" solder is the easiest to use. Wash your hands after using it, or wear gloves. 60/40 solder is almost as easy, and cheaper. Lead-free is more difficult, especially for learning. Learn with lead solder, then switch to lead-free.
Wearing gloves and washing your hands five million times is more annoying than just using lead free.
And even with perfect precautions, the flux expands and makes it spit tiny little balls, which then contaminates your whole work area with a somewhat fine dust.
RoHS was more about removing lead from electronics as a whole than health risk to an individual from soldering. To put it into perspective, if you lived in a city before the 1990s, you've already inhaled more lead than you ever will from soldering.
But in a non-occupational exposure setting you're not likely to have issues if you solder occasionally even with lead solder and don't take any precautions.
Yes, but buy several. Maybe it's only because I buy cheap crap ones in the first place, but I treat them as consumables.
If you dig through someone's old tool box, you'll find a pair of wire cutters with a half-moon nick in each blade from trying to cut something hard.
Naturally my use of wire cutters is declining, due to surface mount, but some of my boards still have larger through-hole parts, and I make custom cables for this and that during prototyping.
Kapton tape
I learned soldering by playing around with electric guitars, amps, cables, etc.
Once you're ready to move up to more difficult things such as PCB repair and surface mount, you'll have acquired the basic skills and knack.
At the basic level, all you need is a soldering iron, some solder, and basic hand tools that you already have if you're into tinkering. The rest of the stuff can come later as needed.
Don't overlook taking a community college course. You'll have access to the latest equipment without having to own it.
What gets you good at soldering is just practice. Solder a lot. A fun and easy way to do this is to pick up those cheap ($5 or less) electronic solder-it-yourself kits and do a bunch of them. Include ones that contain small surface mount parts.
You can also practice desoldering on them, or pick up broken electronics and desolder parts from those.
> managed to desolder and resolder a stick but the controller doesn't turn on anymore.
There's a chance to practice repair (which is a completely different topic from soldering)! Odds are very high the problem is that you've made an unwanted solder bridge or you have a cold solder joint.
Yes. There's repair, rework, build and debugging.
Repair is mostly diagnosis, followed by cleaning and repair of mechanical damage. ICs themselves don't fail much. That's what the original poster is doing.
Rework is mostly careful desoldering followed by new component installation. That's when hot-air rework stations are needed, if you have to replace ICs. This is a "use the right tool for the job" task, where you have little metal heat gun air guides for each IC shape. (I have a bag of those things.)
Building, where you start with a blank board and a supply of components, all with a known-to-work design, is just small scale manufacturing. It takes some skill and training, but the process is simple and repetitive. It's automated in production shops.
Debugging of new board designs requires not just soldering tools but the test equipment to test the thing and an understanding of how it works. This is what electrical engineers and technicians do.
Other thing that got me: no-clean flux residue plus a cheap iron with a bad ground can look like a dead board when it's just leakage. Clean it with IPA and a brush and retest before desoldering anything else.
Soldering new is easier than repair.
Get some dirt cheap ali express electronic kits and solder them up. Or get a load of components and some strip boards. Lead solder is much easier to use.
Basic antex iron. Stand with sponge...dab of solder on the iron, wipe on sponge, push iron against both board and component, feed in solder, admire.
For repair work, you want scrap boards real boards. Desolder all of the components, put them back.
Practice. Buy the fancier stuff once you know why it might be useful.
If you are going to do much soldering you need some kind of extractor. Flux in solder will cause breathing problems fairly quickly.
Look at the traces that go to the stick or that are near that area, look for scratches.
2. Use leaded solder - lead-free is a pain. If you're not doing this for hours every day, even without ventilation, you'll be fine.
3. Heat the pads you're soldering to, not the solder. I used to tell kids to hold the iron to the pad for a count of three, then feed the solder in.
4. Two additional tools I find helpful - a solder sucker and copper wick.
From memory when I ran a production line with soldering stations ventilation is equally (and possibly more) important for lead free solder.
https://www.robins.af.mil/Portals/59/documents/technicalorde...
I was a 2M Mini/Micro repair technician for a few years in the Navy. That book was our school and manual.
Exhaust fan! Put your station next to a window, both for light and ventilation.
So the moment you find yourself fighting or forcing the solder, it’s better to step back and create the right conditions.
My friend Jim's been soldering since the 1950s. We solder a lot of things with leads, for this, his method is to get each item to be joined tinned, then use solder as a mechanical joint. Melt in the solder, remove the iron but hold them together, then once cool, tug on the joint to make sure it holds.
[1] https://build-a-blinkie.org/events.php
Please have a look at PACE soldering/desoldering videos on youtube. They are dated but very good in general. You don't need a lot of videos, just the basics. https://paceworldwide.com/video/basic-soldering-lesson-1-sol...
You don't need to spend a lot of money so I'll keep it simple:
Get yourself a few kits of SMD soldering components and practice. Amazon, AliExpress, whatever.
Some notes on technique:
You will be surprised at the tip size that works well - usually slightly larger is actually better, just need to get comfortable with the angle and size.
Have a magnifying lamp or something like that to help you see better.
You should always use alcohol (70-99% IPA) and flux. Clean everything properly, then flux it, then solder it. Then clean after you're done. Have a few flux pens on hand. MG Chemicals sells these things. You can also get the bottle version and some empty bottles with syringes that mount on top.
Using a "shoe" iron tip is nice because you can angle it between the lead of the component (through-hole) and the pad, and this gives you a little entry way for your solder to flow. The flowing, hot solder will then naturally heat up the rest of the pad. This is a thermal mass effect.
The alternative of having the iron tip on one side of the lead, and the solder wire on the other is not bad either. This makes the solder "flow" across the pad, but it does mean you don't get the thermal mass effect of the first approach. You may need to do this in tighter spaces. Regulate temperature wisely.
For through-hole components, most often the hole itself is plated so it is a double-sided pad, give it an extra 0.5-1s for the solder to go to the other side appropriately.
Make sure you have small wire cutters and nose pliers. The nose pliers are very handy when you need to shape the leads of transistors or chips that have 4-5 legs exactly to the through-hole positioning. Not usual, but not uncommon to see staggered layout.
You will make mistakes. You won't know what you are doing because no amount of tutorials can help here. We have all busted boards for various reasons. Just don't electrocute yourself on high voltage capacitor banks.
Not mentioned here yet but the majority of early soldering attempt failures mostly come from crap irons and crap solder not human issues. You need a decent quality temperature controlled iron and decent quality solder, preferably flux cored if you're doing repairs. Here, I have a second hand Metcal iron which cost less than the much recommended Hakko irons and is orders of magnitude better. Solder, I just use thin 60/40 multicore. Avoid the lead free initially until you have some practice.
Watch soldering videos on youtube. Check the comments to make sure people aren't slating their technique.
Removing some parts, like DIP packages really does need specialist irons with vacuum pumps built in to not mangle them. Desolder braid and solder suckers are absolutely no good for that sort of stuff and tend to lift pads.
Only at the very end does your own soldering skill matter.
This is true for most things. Don’t let the naysayers discourage you.
There are probably some great videos on soldering on YouTube, luckily it's a mature field so not much has changed!
Some random tips...
Lead solder is easier to work with, but with lead free make sure you are using the right flux and temperature.
It helps to preheat things as much as you can. You want to have a hot pad and hot lead, then add solder to that. As opposed to putting a blob of solder on the iron and trying to apply it like glue.
Too much heat can damage the board or part of course.
Use the right tips. Fatter tips can help more evenly apply heat.
If there is a lot of copper like a ground plane, it can take longer to heat.
Watch for cold joints!
Just overall think about getting the parts you want solder on hot, touch solder to it, remove heat.
Don't eat it!
It's probably not gonna be 100% shiny, that's fine, it just has to wet effectively instead of just kind of hovering in a blob.
Lead free is the only thing I use unless I'm repairing some old pre rohs era thing I guess, but I generally don't encounter many of those.
Probably your board has some uncleaned flux which makes some parasitic capacitance which make your board feel dead. Also expencive boards typically have some easy to break signalizers that someone not skilled was here. Visual control is a king.
Also, good tools and supplies- kester solder and liquid flux.
It took me quite a while to figure out that my preferences are for desoldering braid that's been soaked with liquid flux- if I use a manual pump it's going to be rough. I am hoping to get a hot air station at some point but I haven't been doing enough work to justify it over my ancient hakko.
It makes me look like i know what I’m doing
You really do need all those little tools, plus a good soldering station, and possibly a hot-air rework station. Get a smoke extractor fan. Learn to use lead-free solder with a small silver component. That gets the melting point down. Visit a place that repairs cell phones and see what they have.
1. Access to a bunch of different equipment without breaking the bank. Want to try out a bunch of different kinds of flux? See what kind of de-soldering tools are good for different tasks? Now you can!
2. Access to expertise and moral support. Trying to do everything by yourself is no fun. A YouTube video can be helpful but it's no substitute for a knowledgeable friend or more experienced mentor.
I recently did an RTC battery substitution on my Framework laptop's mainboard, and I could do it with confidence because I had good tools and people to consult at my makerspace.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL926EC0F1F93C1837&si=srD8...
I have not found a modern resource that explains it better.
For example, you end up with a poor soldering. You try again, and again, but it doesn't get better. Maybe only worse. But what was wrong?
- Was the temperature OK? (And is my iron reporting the real temperature? Should I spend another 300 bucks in a soldering tip thermometer?)
- Maybe the solder I bought is not appropriate?
- Was it the flux? Did I apply it correctly?
- Also, is this tip the best one for the job? Besides, I could have damaged it before when trying to solder and it's not good anymore, although looks good to me
- Or my technique isn't good enough. Am I drag soldering this right? Maybe I should apply heat for longer? But what if I damage the component?
The things you want to solder need to be at a minimum temperature for the solder to properly flow.
Parts with a lot of metal attached to it will need more time to get hot. Most notorious are pads connected to a large (ground) plane.
If the solder does not flow properly because of this, increase the time of contact between your soldering iron and the items, add a small amount of solder to the tip to increase contact area. Or use a heat gun in your other hand or a preheater. Or buy a soldering iron with more power.
Flux will help too.
Use a fan to draw the fumes away from you, at a minimum. If you do this on a daily basis, get a fume extractor.
There are many more tips on the internet. The first thing I mentioned is the most important one, imho.
- Bend the tips
- Don't buy an expensive iron, use a cheap one and assist it with a hot air gun
Sorin is incredibly skilled. Here he is fixing a ribbon cable:
https://youtu.be/P81IG0DZ1kg?t=494
You probably cut a trace or lifted a pad. A picture or 7 would have been good
After I finished, the right click felt like it was 'glued down' or 'stuck'...
I never heard the click sound again...
Yep, it was broken.
I've decided never to solder anything ever again...
But good luck to you!
this is not a good pattern!
Every next solder makes you better at soldering.
Get through your first 1000 solders as soon as possible, and then keep going. The rest will figure itself out along the way.
I'd recommend checking out one of the many youtube channels who do repairs for an idea of the tools and stuff you need. Many have links and most use similar tools.
For $300 in tools from AliExpress you can have a pretty complete setup.
Also, flux is your friend.
- understand that different tasks require different amounts of heat. The reason a task is difficult or you ruined a board could be due to your iron not getting hot enough or too hot (traces come up).
- use flux, as others have said
- have proper ventilation, even for lead-free systems, there are plenty of other toxins you are likely exposing yourself to - straight into your lungs - if you solder in an unventilated area. Dont think "it wont happen to me".
- wear eye protection. tiny little beads of molten metal can and do fly up in random directions, especially when soldering wires.
- if you burn yourself, hold the affected area under cold water for 20-40seconds, way longer than you think is necessary. burns keep burning after the heat source is removed.
- get a good soldering iron if you are serious about doing it a lot. I am no expert, but I used a Metcal MX-500 for years. If you can afford it, do it. It was the cadillac of soldering irons. Don't get a $30 RadioShack model and wonder why you can't solder tiny SMT joints.
- get a bright spotlight for doing fine work. to me, the light was more important than magnification. the magnifying glasses just got in the way, and stereo microscopes are probably too expensive for you/most of us.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J5Sb21qbpEQ
In reality there are multiple factors at play, but a simple and useful abstraction is to think about solder as something that flows more easily to places that are hot. That means the solder always likes to go onto the iron, since that is likely the hottest thing around.
This means your first goal is simply to heat up the places you want to solder far enough so they can melt the solder if you touch them with the solder wire¹.
This usually means heating two things at once: be it two wires you solder together or a pad and the leg of a resistor. That means knowing the geometry of your tip well is useful: How to wedge it in to heat the two things at once. Typically only the shiny, plated bits of the tip are really good at conducting heat². A little drop of solder on the iron can help conduct the heat to a bigger surface, a bit like the fat in a frying pan.
But generally you heat the parts with the iron and then you feed the solder wire into the parts. If they are hot e ough, the solder melts. If not, you wait.
The solder wire typically has a resin-like fluid inside, that helps with soldering as it reduces the surface tension of the metal (this is most of the stuff in the fumes). Capillary effect is the main thing that makes solder flow where you want it to. When the flux is evaporated soldering gets harder, so you may need to add fresh solder after a while or you use flux from a dispenser that you add manually.³
Then there is a lot about logistics. Heated air travels up, on earth solder tends to be affected by gravity and has a tendency to go down (although capillary effects are really the dominant force here), gravity affects parts, wires bend where their material wanta them to etc. The logistics part means: you have only two hands, an iron, solder wire and typically two or more parts that need to be joined.
Being good at soldering is (1) having a good mental model and intuition about how and why the solder flows the way it does and (2) have skill and experience to get the logistics right. The first you can learn to understand, the latter is a matter of practise.⁴
I have thought soldering sucessfully to well over 400 people during the past decade.
¹ This means your iron and tip need to be able to deliver enough heat to heat the parts. If you try to heat up a 200W copper CPU cooler with a 14W soldering iron you can wait forever for the solder to melt. This also has to do with thermal mass and regulation of the iron. Modern irons with modern tips have the temperature probe inside the tip. This helps a ton with avoiding temperature dips when you start to touch something and makes soldering much easier.
² This means keeping tips clean with a proper cleaner literally before every solder joint is crucial. If your tip is toast and has no shiny bit anymore, clean it. If that doesn't help use Ersa Solder Tip Reactivator or buy a new tip. Of course your parts should also be clean (Isopropanol)
³ There are ways to remove excess solder. The simplest being using the right motion with the tip on a coldish joint, making the excess solder stick to the iron and not to the (colder) joint. Other things are spring loaded suction devices (very useful to get solder out of through holes!) and solder wick (very useful to clean old pads)
⁴ There a tools like third hands and so on, and watching some videos by experienced solderers is a good way (nowadays) to learn it, but a steady hand only comes with practise